The Token and Medal Society announced May 15 that the speaker for the 2008 TAMS Symposium will be Russ Sears, an active Maryland collector and club activist.
The symposium is scheduled during the regular TAMS meeting at the Baltimore Convention Center July 31 at 1 p.m.
Sears? slide show presentation is titled ?Stories of History Told by Baltimore Medals.? He will show various medals of the Baltimore area and tell the historical story for each. One of the showcase medals will be the 1927 Centenary of the B&O Railroad.
Sears has been a collector and historical speaker for more than 30 years. He specializes in exonumia and other historical artifacts of Baltimore. Active in the Maryland Token and Medal Society, he is a past officer, speaker, exhibitor and auctioneer for that club and has won numerous literary awards for his articles. Other clubs he belongs to are the Civil War Token Society, the American Vecturists Association, The Elongated Collectors, the Maryland Historical Society and the Baltimore Museum of Industry. His wife, Jane Sears, is a noted local researcher and award-winning author.
For more information about TAMS, visit its Web site at www.tokenandmedal.org, or e-mail Robert F. Fritsch at bobfritsch@earthlink.net.